President Donald Trump is on a list of witnesses for trial in a Palm Beach lawsuit that pits billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein against a Fort Lauderdale attorney who represents Epstein’s victims.

The case appears bound for trial this summer following a Feb. 9 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court in another case that has allowed Fort Lauderdale lawyer Bradley Edwards’ claim of malicious prosecution against Epstein to proceed.

President Trump “has been identified as an individual who may have information relating to these allegations,” said Edwards’ West Palm Beach attorney Jack Scarola, who placed Trump’s name on a witness list on Aug. 31. “But it’s unlikely that he would ever be called” to appear at trial, especially now that he’s assumed the presidency.

Scarola said Trump is one of a number of high-profile individuals whose testimony might be relevant because they “had a relationship with Epstein that would have at least exposed them potentially to what was going on inside Epstein’s Palm Beach home … during the relevant period of time” between 2001-2007.

What was going on in Epstein’s mansion, court papers say, was an ugly child molestation scheme involving sex with “substantially more” than 40 girls, some as young as 12. A “statement of undisputed facts” filed by Scarola says Epstein used his staff and his victims to recruit more victims, employing “a pyramid abuse scheme in which he paid underage victims $200-$300 cash for each other underage victim that she brought to him.”

“There is no evidence the President was involved in Epstein’s schemes,” Scarola said.

Secretary of Labor nominee Alex Acosta

Still, the spectacle of a U.S. president being drawn into sordid litigation involving a notorious politically connected sexual criminal who got an apparent sweetheart deal from then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, now Trump’s nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Labor, represents a potential political nightmare for the White House.

The White House press office did not respond to requests for comment.

Epstein’s attorney, Tonja Haddad Coleman, declined to comment.

An affidavit about Trump

A little-noticed affidavit by Edwards recounting his knowledge of Trump’s involvement with Epstein is recounted further below in this story.

Investment banker Epstein, represented by a team of high-powered lawyers, pleaded guilty June 30, 2008 in Palm Beach Circuit Court to two felonies: procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and offering to commit prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence. The Palm Beach Daily News has reported Epstein served his time in “a vacant wing at the Palm Beach County Stockade with liberal work-release privileges.”

In exchange for his plea, U.S. Attorney Acosta agreed not prosecute Epstein or his employees on federal charges contained in a 53-page indictment. A 2007 federal non-prosecution agreement with Epstein states, among other things, that he “knowingly and willfully” conspired with others to use interstate commerce to “persuade, induce, or entice minor females to engage in prostitution.”

If convicted of that charge, and others cited in the agreement, Epstein faced possible prison for life.

Republican Acosta, dean of Florida International University’s Law School and chairman of U.S. Century Bank, is expected to be asked about his treatment of Epstein at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

In addition to the malicious prosecution claim against Epstein, attorney Edwards is also suing the government on behalf of “Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2” and others under the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA). The lawsuit, filed in 2008, alleges the U.S. Attorney’s Office under Acosta violated the rights of Epstein’s victims by, among other things, “conspiring” with Epstein to keep them “in the dark’’ so the plea arrangement could be done without the victims “raising any objection.”

Wifredo Ferrer, who stepped down as Miami U.S. Attorney earlier this month

In February 2016, Edwards and co-counsel Paul Cassell filed a still-pending motion for summary judgment that says Acosta’s successor, Wifredo Ferrer, “has continued to fight” victims’ efforts “to have the court declare that their rights were violated.” The motion asks U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to rule that the government violated the victims’ rights and explore possible remedies. Ferrer stepped down March 3.

Addressing a “terrible injustice”

“Both Brad and Professor Cassell undertook and have continued to prosecute the CVRA claim to address what they perceive to be a terrible injustice,” said Scarola. “There is no claim for money damages and there is no prevailing party provision in the CVRA” that would allow them to collect legal fees for their work on the case.

Attorney Edwards began representing several of Epstein’s victims while maintaining a solo law practice in 2008, settling a number of claims for undisclosed amounts two years later.

For eight months in 2009, however, he worked for Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler, the law firm that spectacularly imploded in scandal in November of that year when it was discovered that founder Scott Rothstein was running a giant Ponzi scheme. Rothstein, now in prison, enticed investors by falsely claiming that they could buy into lucrative pending settlements in whistleblower, sexual harassment and other cases.

Edwards’ court papers say he knew nothing of Rothstein’s schemes, and federal authorities later determined Edwards to have been one of Rothstein’s victims. In 2009, however, Epstein sued Rothstein, Edwards and one of Edwards’ clients alleging, among other things, civil racketeering. Edwards’ court response: the suit was filed “for the sole purpose of attempting to intimidate” him and his client.

Epstein later dropped all his allegations, and Edwards since has turned the case back against him with his counterclaim of malicious prosecution. The case was on hold for two years pending last month’s Florida Supreme Court ruling, which reversed a lower court decision that dismissed the accusation on technical grounds.

Edwards won’t discuss either case. But in a little-noticed 2010 affidavit, given a year after the case was filed, Edwards explained why he thought Trump and other notables involved with Epstein, including former President Bill Clinton, might have relevant information to provide.

Does Trump have knowledge of Epstein’s crimes?

In his affidavit, Edwards suggests Trump has personal knowledge of Epstein’s criminality.

“I learned through a source that Trump banned Epstein from his Maralago [Mar-A- Lago] Club in West Palm Beach because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club,” Edwards stated.

The affidavit notes that Trump visited Epstein at Epstein’s West Palm Beach home – “the same home where Epstein abused minor girls daily.”

Fort Lauderdale attorney Bradley Edwards

A “review of message pads confiscated from Epstein’s home” showed “that Trump called Epstein’s West Palm Beach mansion on several occasions during the time period relevant to my client’s complaints,” the affidavit says. Likewise “Epstein’s phone directory from his computer contains 14 phone numbers for Donald Trump, including emergency numbers, car numbers, and numbers to Trump’s security guard and houseman.”

The affidavit goes on to say that one of Epstein’s victims “Jane Doe #102” has alleged that she was initially approached at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago by Ghislaine Maxwell and recruited to be Maxwell and Epstein’s “underage sex slave.”

Maxwell, daughter of the late British publishing baron Robert Maxwell, is named in the affidavit as an Epstein associate of interest. She is described in court papers as Epstein’s “longtime companion” who helped run his companies and “recruit underage children” for the pleasure of both Epstein and herself. The affidavit says she attended the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter, in July 2010.

The affidavit goes on to cite the 2009 deposition of Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, who “testified that Trump flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane with him (the same plane that Jane Doe 102 alleged was used to have sex with underage girls).”

Likewise, attorney Edwards cited in his affidavit a 2002 New York Magazine article about Epstein titled, “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.”

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” said Trump, then a prominent, wealthy New York developer. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

The subtitle of the article about Epstein: “He’s pals with a passel of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, CEOs like Leslie Wexner of the Limited, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, even Donald Trump. But it wasn’t until he flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his private Boeing 727 that the world began to wonder who he is.”

A second U.S. president

While ex-President Clinton is not on the witness list for trial, Edwards listed a number of reasons in his affidavit to believe that Clinton might have relevant information about Epstein. They include:

· Clinton’s highly publicized travel with Epstein and Maxwell aboard Epstein’s private plane to Africa. Flight logs for “the relevant years 2002-2005 showed Clinton traveling on Epstein’s plane on more than 10 occasions and his assistant, Doug Band, traveled on many more occasions.” The logs also showed Clinton traveled with other “employees and/or co-conspirators of Epstein’s that were closely connected to Epstein’s child exploitation and sexual abuse.”

· “Jane Doe No. 102 stated generally that she was required by Epstein to be exploited not only by Epstein but also Epstein’s ‘adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and/or other professional and personal acquaintances’ – categories Clinton and acquaintances of Clinton fall into.”

Ex-President Bill Clinton

· “Clinton frequently flew with Epstein aboard his plane, then suddenly stopped – raising the suspicion that the friendship abruptly ended, perhaps because of events related to Epstein’s sexual abuse of children.”

Attorney Scarola would not say why Clinton is not on the Aug. 31 witness list, stating he is “not at liberty to discuss our litigation strategy.”

Edwards initially sought to depose Trump and Clinton about Epstein, but never did. Scarola said there was no need to depose them after Epstein dropped his racketeering and other claims against Edwards.

While there are other notables on the witness list of those with knowledge of Epstein, including retired Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz and illusionist David Copperfield, there’s only one other politician. That’s ex-New Mexico Governor and Clinton Administration Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson.

The affidavit says Epstein’s personal pilot, Larry Morrison, testified in a 2009 deposition about “Richardson joining Epstein at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch” and that “there was information that Epstein had young girls at his ranch which, given the circumstances of the case, raised the reasonable inference he was sexually abusing these girls since he had regularly and frequently abused girls in West Palm Beach and elsewhere.

“Richardson had also returned campaign donations that were given to him by Epstein, indicating that he believed that there was something about Epstein that he did not want to be associated with,” the affidavit says.

For the second time this summer, Miami federal prosecutors stand accused of spying on the defense – this time in the case of an alleged $28-million, international sweepstakes fraud.

As described in court papers, the “invasion of the defense camp” appears to have begun in February when one of four defendants in the case cut a secret plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and began working undercover.

The informant, John Leon of Wilton Manors, participated in defense team strategy sessions for three months as a government “mole,” obtaining documents and listening to privileged discussions about witnesses and other sensitive defense matters and reporting back to the government, the documents say.

The fallout: defense accusations that the case has been irretrievably “tainted” due to constitutional violations of the attorney-client privilege.

“For a period exceeding two months, Leon, acting as a government informant with the government’s acquiescence, invaded the defense camp where he learned critical defense strategies by actively participating in numerous meetings, after already accepting a government plea and agreeing to cooperate,” say court papers filed by attorneys Marc Nurik of West Palm Beach, J. David Bogenschutz of Fort Lauderdale and Marshall Dore Louis of Miami.

Assistant U.S. Attorney H. Ron Davidson, while acknowledging that defendant Leon became a covert “government cooperator,” told U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in a July 8 pleading that Leon “never shared privileged information with the United States, the United States never asked for privileged information and the defendant’s motion lacks any merit.”

The judge, however, has sided so far with the defense. On Aug. 3, after an initial hearing, he ordered the government to turn over to the defense all “rough notes” of interviews of Leon by Internal Revenue Service agents who helped build the government’s fraud case. The defense had sought the agents’ notes, contending the government had “carefully sanitized” memos of interviews with Leon produced to the defense.

‘The ends of justice’

The same day, Judge Gayles also granted a continuance in the case and reset the trial date for Nov. 28, saying “the ends of justice outweigh the interests” of a speedy trial.

What’s expected to follow this fall is a full-blown hearing on whether felony charges of mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy should be dismissed against the remaining defendants – Matthew Pisoni, Marcus Pradel and Victor Ramirez – due to government misconduct.

“An evidentiary hearing is exactly what is required to determine how to resolve these blatant [constitutional] violations, and the appropriate sanction for these pervasive violations,” attorneys Nurik and Bogenschutz said in court papers.

In June, prominent Miami defense lawyer Howard Srebnick accused both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of spying on the defense in a $55- million Medicare fraud case by illegally and obtaining copies of confidential defense documents. More specifically, it was alleged a government-approved copying service had surreptitiously provided agents with duplicates of documents culled by the defense team from 220 boxes of evidentiary records in preparation for trial.

The Florida Bulldog reported last month that those allegations of government misconduct dissipated weeks later when the U.S. Attorney’s Office abruptly gave all three defendants generous plea deals involving no prison time. The defendants had each faced lengthy jail terms if convicted.

The copying service, Imaging Universe, was fired. The U.S. Attorney’s Office conducted an internal inquiry, but declined to make public its findings. Srebnick withdrew his motion with the accusations after securing a deal for his client. Consequently, the judge never ruled on the merits.

The alleged scam

Pisoni was president of the now-defunct Mail Tree, Michael McKay, Spin Mail and other Florida companies that the government contends were used in the fraud. Pradel, Ramirez and Leon worked with him in the alleged scam.

The four were indicted together on May 7, 2015 for participating in a sweepstakes scheme that began in 2006. The indictment says victims were falsely notified by mail that they’d won a substantial prize, but needed to pay a fee of up to $50 to redeem their winnings.

Authorities have said the defendants collected more than $25 million from hundreds of thousands of victims in the U.S. and abroad, using shell companies and international bank accounts to lauder their loot.

Even before they were indicted, the four had learned they were under investigation “and circled the wagons in a Joint Defense Agreement,” the government said. A JDA is a contract in which defendants extend the attorney-client relationship among them to facilitate the sharing of privileged information.

But last winter, unknown to his fellow defendants, Leon and his Fort Lauderdale attorney, Omar F. Guerra Johansson, began plea negotiations that resulted in his Feb. 17 plea agreement with the government.

“His cooperation was kept covert because Leon was cooperating with the government against a non-charged defendant,” prosecutor Davidson wrote. “Moreover, the government specifically instructed Leon not to share privileged information.”

Leon’s plea deal became public on April 20 when the indictment against him was dropped and a single new conspiracy charge was filed. He’s now facing a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. Before, like the others, he faced a maximum of 80 years in prison.

Weeks after being accused of spying on the defense in a $55-million Medicare fraud case, the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office gave all three defendants generous plea deals that closed the case and made the misconduct accusations go away.

At the same time, the government quietly fired the Fort Lauderdale-based copying service at the center of the scandal. Imaging Universe had improperly supplied the government with duplicates of documents that defense lawyers cherry-picked out of 220 boxes of seized records while searching for evidence helpful to their clients.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office investigated the matter, but declined a request by FloridaBulldog.org to make public its findings.

Dr. Salo Schapiro, the 71-year-old former medical director of Biscayne Milieu Health Center, faced up to 100 years in prison and $55 million in liability when he was indicted for conspiracy and health care fraud in September 2014. But last June 20 – less than three weeks after the Florida Bulldog reported the story – prosecutors who once had trumpeted the case allowed psychiatrist Schapiro to plead guilty to a single count of making a false statement.

Schapiro’s punishment: a $10,000 fine. He continues his medical practice in Boca Raton, but no longer takes Medicare patients. His online biography does not mention his felony conviction.

Nurse practitioner Marlene Cesar, 64, of Allentown, PA, pleaded guilty July 1 to stealing less than $1,000 in Medicare benefits and was fined $150. On July 28, 74-year-old mental health counselor Sonia Gallimore, who like Schapiro was from Broward, was placed on pretrial diversion for six months.

“The story is in the results,” said Schapiro’s Miami attorney, Howard Srebnick.

Srebnick and his associate, Rossana Arteaga-Gomez, raised the matter in court filings in late May. Their motion argued that the government had a practice of secretly obtaining copies of documents the defense had flagged as important and asserted it was not the action of “just one rogue [FBI] agent or prosecutor.” Rather, the motion said, it appeared to be “an office-wide policy” of both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI that has gone on for “at least 10 years.”

Several days of hearings, open and closed, were held before Miami U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke. They culminated with Schapiro’s combined guilty plea and sentencing hearing June 20 on the reduced felony charge.

Credibility in question

After negotiating the plea deal for his client, attorney Srebnick withdrew his motion at the hearing. He said its allegations “were based solely on the statements and emails of the owner of the copy service, whose credibility, at a minimum, has come into question during this litigation.”

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer issued this statement:

“When we learned of the copy service issue, our prosecutors immediately notified the defense lawyers. Unintended circumstances can arise — the test is what you do when faced with such circumstances. Here, rather than resolve the matter privately, we were completely open and transparent. We urged the defense to air it in public. Ultimately, the defense counsel acknowledged that they had no information the prosecutors had looked at any of the materials in question and that the prosecutors in the case acted appropriately and ethically.”

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer

The owner of Imaging Universe is Ignacio E. Montero. He did not return several phone messages seeking comment.

The motion said Montero told attorney Arteaga-Gomez that he’d provided the U.S. Attorney’s Office “duplicate copies of the discovery documents selected by defense counsel in other cases” for the past 10 years.

Court papers alleged that Imaging Universe and Montero gave the government CDs containing duplicates of documents Schapiro’s defense team had culled from the 220 boxes of records agents had seized from Biscayne Milieu. The records were stored at an FBI warehouse in Miramar, where defense lawyers who wanted copies of such records were required to use Imaging Universe.

The government later acknowledged that Imaging Universe did supply the FBI with duplicate CDs of what it had copied for Schapiro’s defense team, but said the discs “were never requested by any agent, prosecutor or anyone else on the government’s behalf.”

No ‘pervasive’ spying

Assistant U.S. Attorney James V. Hayes was the lead prosecutor on the case. He has said in court papers that he was unaware of the duplicate CDs until an FBI agent disclosed their existence in April. He and co-counsel Lisa H. Miller, a Justice Department fraud attorney, said they immediately told “Montero to stop and began an internal inquiry.” They also said “no pervasive practice of receiving or recording defense discovery” was found.

Still, the government sent out notifications about what happened to lawyers for a number of unidentified defendants. Officials declined to say how many attorneys were notified.

Defense lawyers recently raised a similar issue “of government invasion of the defense camp” in at least one unrelated case involving an allegedly fraudulent sweepstakes scheme.

Prosecutor Hayes informed Srebnick on April 22 that FBI Agent Deanne Lindsey “had been surreptitiously receiving the CDs,” according to the defense motion. “Hayes proposed to immediately destroy the CDs,” but the lawyers instead asked that he give them to the defense, “which he did.”

“Covertly cloning defense counsel’s work-product to obtain a tactical advantage is nothing short of ‘shocking to the universal sense of justice,’ ” Srebnick and Arteaga-Gomez wrote.

Court records show that between June 8 and 16 U.S. District Judge Cooke held a series of open and closed hearings about the matter. Early on, the judge indicated she would make a ruling on the motion and even asked both sides what possible remedies were available should she find “pervasive” misconduct by the government.

But the judge never ruled on the merits of the defense motion. The matter became moot when Srebnick withdrew it after prosecutors offered Schapiro the plea deal and he accepted.

Judge Cooke has set a June 8 hearing to consider alleged wrongdoing by federal prosecutors and agents.

In a stunning twist in a long-running Medicare fraud case, both the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI stand accused of spying on a defendant’s lawyer by illegally and secretly obtaining copies of confidential defense documents.

Court papers filed last week by attorneys for Dr. Salo Schapiro contend the secret practice was not the action of “just one rogue agent or prosecutor.” Rather, it was apparently an “office-wide policy” of both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI that’s gone on for “at least 10 years.”

The unwritten policy involves “surreptitiously copying defense counsel’s work product through the government-contracted copy service that the government requires defense counsel to use to obtain the discovery documents’’ needed to properly prepare for trial, according to court papers that seek either the dismissal of Schapiro’s indictment or the disqualification of the entire prosecution team.

Miami attorneys Howard Srebnick and Rossana Arteaga-Gomez represent Schapiro and filed the motion, which asserts that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has for several weeks been investigating itself in the matter.

Miami U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke held an initial hearing Tuesday that was continued until June 8 at 1:30 p.m. The judge, in an order, has asked both parties to respond to this extraordinary question: “What remedies, if any, are available to the court were the court to find that the described conduct in defendant Schapiro’s motion is a systemic, consistent and/or pervasive practice of or on behalf of the United States Attorney’s Office?”

A spokeswoman for Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer would not be interviewed. However, late Thursday night prosecutors filed court papers confirming that an internal probe is underway and asserting that defense arguments are “based on erroneous accusations and insinuations.”

Howard Srebnick, left, and James V. Hayes

“Despite the charged language this is not a case about intrusion into the attorney-client relationship, eavesdropping or sneaking into the defense camp,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney James V. Hayes and Justice Department fraud attorney Lisa H. Miller.

Specifically, the court papers allege that Fort Lauderdale-based copying service Imaging Universe and president Ignacio E. Montero provided the government with CDs containing duplicates of documents Schapiro’s defense team culled from 220 boxes of evidentiary records in preparation for trial. Federal agents had seized those records from the mental-health clinic Biscayne Milieu, where Schapiro worked.

“Covertly cloning defense counsel’s work-product to obtain a tactical advantage is nothing short of ‘shocking to the universal sense of justice’ mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment,” Srebnick and Arteaga-Gomez wrote. “To the extent that the prosecution team can infer from Dr. Schapiro’s selection of discovery documents his thought process, the government has violated his Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself. This intrusion into the attorney-client relationship has also violated Dr. Schapiro’s Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel.”

The government responds

The government’s Thursday night response acknowledged that Imaging Universe did supply the FBI with duplicate CDs of what the company had copied for Schapiro’s defense team, but said the discs “were never requested by any agent, prosecutor or anyone else on the government’s behalf.”

Prosecutors Hayes and Miller also stated that they were unaware of the duplicate CDs until an FBI agent disclosed their existence in late April. They said that when they found out they immediately told “Montero to stop and began an internal inquiry.”

“To date it has found that there was simply no pervasive practice of receiving or recording defense discovery, and that it was not a widespread or institutionalized practice,” says the government’s response.

Nova Southeastern University constitutional law professor Robert Jarvis was skeptical of the defense’s sensational claims, but said that if the allegations prove true it could upend hundreds of criminal cases, free untold defendants and potentially result in criminal charges against government officials responsible for violating defendants’ rights.

“This opens a huge can of worms,” Jarvis said. “It’s potentially catastrophic for the government and I would think that the [U.S.] Attorney General would be swooping in on this. There are 95 judicial districts. If it happened in this office, you have to wonder if it’s happening in any others.”

Schapiro, 70, Sonia Gallimore, 74, both Broward residents, and Marlene Cesar, 64, of Allentown, PA., were indicted on charges of health care fraud and conspiracy and making false statements in September 2014. According to the indictment, they and other alleged co-conspirators submitted more than $55 million in phony Medicare claims through the Miami clinic, Biscayne Milieu, collecting more than $11 million. Previously, about 25 other owners and employees of the clinic pleaded guilty or were convicted of healthcare fraud.

On Tuesday, attorneys for Gallimore and Cesar filed paperwork seeking dismissal of their charges, claiming their clients’ rights were similarly violated by the alleged scheme.

The defense motion says that between late 2014 and last month, Schapiro’s lawyers repeatedly visited an FBI warehouse in Miramar where discovery documents are kept for review. During Arteaga-Gomez’s first visit to the warehouse federal agents told her that if she wanted to copy any documents she would have to use Imaging Universe, the motion says.

Since the indictment, Imaging Universe has charged Schapiro $8,200 to produce nine sets of discovery documents to his defense team. The motion identifies those records to include a dozen CDs containing approximately 1,140 PDF files, many with multiple pages.

The motion contends that company president Montero “lied” to Arteaga-Gomez about the copying process, and instead of making sure the government did not see the defense’s hand-selected files, provided FBI case agent Deanne Lindsey with duplicate copies.

Montero did not respond to a detailed voicemail message seeking comment.

Prosecutor discloses FBI received defense CDs

Hayes, the federal prosecutor on Schapiro’s case, first informed Srebnick and his associate that agent Lindsey “had been surreptitiously receiving the CDs” on April 22, according to the defense motion.

“Hayes proposed to immediately destroy the CDs,” but the lawyers asked instead that he give them to the defense, “which he did,” the motion says.

Hayes declined to be interviewed about the matter.

Arteaga-Gomez phoned Montero on April 25 to ask who had told him to provide copies of the CDs to the government. Montero, the motion says, answered that an “agent” told his office manager to do it. “Mr. Montero then stated that he had been providing to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the past 10 years duplicate copies of the discovery documents selected by defense counsel in other cases.”

Montero also forwarded to Schapiro’s defense an April 21 email he sent to a healthcare-fraud paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, stating that he’d provided the Justice Department with duplicates of defense records “since 2006.” Montero added that both his old company, Xpediacopy, and Imaging Universe had done it.

If so, the alleged government misconduct spanned the administrations of three Miami U.S. Attorneys – Alex Acosta, who served from 2005-2009, Jeffrey Sloman acting U.S. Attorney from 2009-2010 and Wifredo Ferrer, who took over in May 2010.

Srebnick and Arteaga-Gomez wrote that they’ve recently had “multiple conversations” about the matter with Miami federal prosecutors and their supervisors.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has admitted that Agent Deanne Lindsey had been receiving copies of the CDs and had been keeping the duplicate CDs in a folder as she received them,” the motion says. Lindsey also “confessed to opening four of those duplicate CDs” looking for files, copying and pasting files onto her own CDs and providing “those new CDs to the government’s expert witness for trial preparation,” the motion says.

The prosecutors’ response sought to cast Lindsey’s contact with the records in less threatening way.

Prosecutors notified the defense last week that Montero had “confessed to lying to Rossana Arteaga-Gomez about the discovery process” in order to hide what was happening, the defense lawyers wrote.

“That the government-contracted copy service misled Ms. Arteaga-Gomez in order to cover-up the office-wide policy makes this case especially egregious,” the motion says.

Details about the size, terms and duration of Imaging Universe’s contract were not immediately available. The prosecutors’ response, however, said the contract is between Imaging Universe and the Government Publishing office.

A for-profit career school operator with once-bustling campuses in Broward and Miami-Dade counties agreed this month to pay $3.7 million to the government to settle whistleblower fraud claims.

ATI Enterprises, which operated as ATI Career Training Center, agreed to the payout while denying accusations it had recruited students at homeless shelters, strip clubs and among criminals, then forged paperwork to make them eligible for thousands of dollars in federal tuition grants and loans.

The settlement, announced by the Justice Department last week, comes as crisis managers liquidate the Texas-based company by selling off assets and transferring or referring students to other schools, according to interim CEO Michael F. Gries.

At its height a few years ago, privately held ATI boasted 24 campuses in five states with more than 3,000 employees and 16,000 students. It was valued at more than $400 million.

ATI’s South Florida training schools in Fort Lauderdale, Oakland Park, the Doral area west of Miami International Airport, and Miami Gardens closed at the end of last year, Gries said.

Whistleblower Dulce Ramirez-Damon

The settlement resolved a pair of federal whistleblower complaints, including one filed in federal court by Dulce Ramirez-Damon, ATI’s former assistant director of education in Fort Lauderdale.

Ramirez-Damon’s False Claims Act complaint was filed in secret in July 2011. It alleged that ATI had engaged in a “systematic and nationwide fraudulent practice of forging documents and records to create an appearance of student eligibility in order to receive federal funds.

A similar whistleblower action was filed in federal court in northern Texas in 2009. Both suits have now been made public.

Private individuals bring false claim lawsuits in the name of the United States. They share in any recovery, in this case up to 25 percent plus attorney fees.

After investigating, the government decided to intervene on Aug. 7 in Ramirez-Damon’s case for the purposes of settlement, court records say.

ATI also allegedly misrepresented its job placement statistics to authorities in Texas in order to maintain its licensing and accreditation, the press release said.

‘MISUSE OF FUNDS’

Federal prosecutors in Miami, Washington, and Texas investigated, along with the Department of Education’s Inspector General.

“Federal financial aid is there to help students attain their dreams and goals, and misuse of these funds to increase corporate profits is unacceptable,” Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said in a press release. “We are committed to ensuring that federal student aid is used for the benefit of students.”

The whistleblower lawsuit alleges that within a month of Ramirez-Damon’s hiring in October 2009 it became apparent to her that ATI was engaged in active Pell Grant fraud. She said she notified her superiors, but that company management chose “to look the other way.”

Ramirez-Damon claimed she was abruptly demoted in April 2011 and transferred off the Fort Lauderdale campus at 2890 NW 62nd Street to a job as an instructor in Miami. The reason: “to keep her silent” and deny her access to school records, the lawsuit said.

She is no longer employed by ATI.

Pell Grants provide government aid to students from low-income families. At ATI, students could take courses to train them for jobs in automotive, health care, business, information technology and other fields.

According to the whistleblower suit, ATI falsified documents to enroll “as many students as possible” in programs with tuitions ranging from $13,741 to $46,744 per program. One former ATI employee is quoted as saying “the ATI culture…was to recruit anyone with a pulse.”

The numbers could add up quickly.

‘A LUCRATIVE SCAM’

“With a student mass of over 750 (in Fort Lauderdale) alone, and 18,000 country wide, federal subsidy of tuition is a very lucrative scam for ATI,” the suit said.

To find students, the suit said, ATI admission representatives targeted “the ‘down and out’ at homeless shelters, strip clubs and poor neighborhoods.” The “bait” to entice them to sign up was the promise of financial aid and low-interest loans. ATI distributed flyers promising lucrative salaries and guarantees of job placement.

The alleged fraud by ATI was sweeping: forged admission exams, forged proof of education, the acceptance of students without screening for criminal history, forged attendance records and falsified grades – all done to make it appear that federal standards were being met so the money would continue to flow.

In the lawsuit, Ramirez-Damon contended, “of a student body of 750 enrolled students” in Fort Lauderdale “at least 150-200 students have a violent or drug-related background.” She provided the names of more than a dozen such students in her complaint.

“It is common practice at ATI when a student is missing attendance, that employees check (the) Florida Department of Corrections website to see if the student has become incarcerated,” said the lawsuit.

ATI would also “re-circulate” poorly achieving students who faced dismissal, letting them know that they could transfer into another career training program. “This way the old grades no longer count and the student is again eligible to receive financial aid,” the suit says.

Some students who failed would fail again because they did not have the academic ability or background to take the courses they were in, according to the lawsuit.

“As a result, the students incurred more debt without graduating. ATI, on the other hand, has made more money,” the suit said.

The government’s press release noted that $2 million of ATI’s settlement payout would be used to refund student loans involving lawsuits brought by individual students against ATI.

The press release did not say how much taxpayers lost on government loans to ATI students.